


Hot or Spicy

by OpienYourMind



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, kitchen shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 18:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13863411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpienYourMind/pseuds/OpienYourMind
Summary: Pyra tries to teach Rex to be something less than a disaster in the kitchen.





	Hot or Spicy

“Er, how d’you do this again?”

Pyra sighed, looking over her shoulder and seeing that, for the third time, Rex had screwed up the cutting of the vegetables beyond all recognition.

“I don’t understand it, Rex,” she chided her Driver gently. She took the knife from his hand and picked an un-mutilated Glitterspud from the basket. “You’ve been swinging a sword since you could walk, or so Azurda says, but when you have a kitchen knife put in front of you, you mess up more than Zeke when Kasandra accidentally uses her power.”

Rex winced, remembering the sheer number of cuts, scrapes and bruises on Zeke that Nia had constantly needed to heal while they were helping Kasandra in Gormott. “Even with his luck, I’m sure Zeke would be more help than I am,” he grumbled as he watched Pyra chop the spud into perfect, equally-sized pieces.

“Don’t you try and get out of this now!” Pyra took her focus off her second Glitterspud for an instant to reproachfully poke Rex in the nose, her Driver thanking the Architect that she hadn’t used her knife hand. “You offered to help me out with the cooking, so you’d better believe you’re seeing it through to the end.”

Rex looked resignedly at the mountain of ingredients and cookware that Tora had produced seemingly from nowhere- how did he keep that many pots and pans around when half the floor was already littered with spare parts, ether crystals, and RAM for Poppi?

The swift knocking of the knife against the cutting board brought his attention back to Pyra. She wore an expression of intense concentration, her tongue protruding slightly from her lips as she continued moving her hand in small flicks up and down. There was something strangely cute about watching her get so utterly fixated on a simple task.

“Rex?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re staring.” Rex started. He hadn’t noticed how long he’d been watching Pyra, but she was now finished with a third Glitterspud and had a large pile of vegetable cubes on the cutting board next to her. She sighed quietly. “Maybe I should’ve invited Zeke to help in the first place…”

“N-no, no! Sorry about that! I’ll help out, just tell me what to do!” Rex stammered, cursing his own overenthusiasm.

“All right, could you shuck the oysters for me and then peel the oranges?” Pyra suggested over her shoulder, dumping the cubes into a large bowl. She turned her attention away, picking up several logs from a stack of wood and placing them under Tora’s oven.

“Sounds good, thanks,” Rex agreed, selecting several oranges and a couple of slimy-shelled oysters from the large jumble of ingredients. Ugh, he thought, quickly tossing the oysters into another bowl. He removed them from their shells as quickly as he could, then wiped his hands off on his shorts and moved on to the oranges. He picked at the rough-textured peel, finally opening a small crack on one side.

“Augh!” A strong scent wafted out of the orange, making Rex cough and his eyes water. “Architect, why are these things so spicy?!”

“It’s fine, you just tear the peel off with one h- _ack_!” Pyra came up to Rex to offer her help, accidentally inhaled, and doubled over, her eyes suddenly streaming.

“Py--ra!” Rex collapsed next to his Blade, the two of them wheezing and hacking on the floor.

“Aughh…” Pyra got to her knees, their coughing fits finally petered out after a couple of minutes. “What was with that thing? I’ve never had one that spicy!”

“I don’t- _hack_ \- know! You’re a fire element, how're you that susceptible to spicy stuff?”

“Heat and spice are two… hah… different things,” Pyra groaned, heaving herself back up onto the counter. “And you already breathed it in, so that means I had to start coughing as badly as you.”

“Titan’s foot… this Blade-Driver connection’s really an incredible thing,” Rex choked out, getting up from his hands and knees.

“Oh, you’re free to just give me back your half of the Core Crystal any time you want,” Pyra retorted, still breathing slightly harder but managing to shoot Rex a weak evil grin.

“Fine, have fun fixin’ all this on your own.” Rex returned her malicious smile.

“Ha, ha- ughh, it hurts to laugh.” Pyra returned to business, her lips closing, but the smile didn’t fade entirely from her face. “Anyway, what I was saying is, once you open a crack, you can hold your nose and mouth with one hand and tear off the peel with your other.”

Rex watched her efficiently strip the Hot Orange’s exterior, picking up the third one and beginning to mimic her actions. Pyra had once again lapsed into that state of intense focus, he noted. With difficulty, he tore his eyes off of her and continued peeling the fruit.

“Have you done stuff like this before, Rex?”

“Eh?” Rex looked up from his task.

“Now that you’re doing this, you seem pretty good at it. Did you ever cook, when you were on your own?”

“No, not really,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head. “Even back when I lived with Aunt Corinne, I was always too busy playing around in the Cloud Sea and with the other kids to help around the house.”

“Or wetting your pants trying to stand up to a monster.”

“Oi, I thought we agreed to drop that!” Rex grimaced at her bringing up the painful detail Gramps had chosen to let slip back in Fonsett. “I think you’ve been hanging out with Nia too much!”

Pyra giggled to herself. “Come on, blame Azurda, not Nia.”

“Ugh, I guess you’re gonna say no if I try to keep him away from dinner?”

“He’s a growing Titan! He needs to eat.”

“You sound like his mum, but he’s supposed to be the old man here!” Rex groaned.

The two collapsed into fits of giggles. “C-come on, we need to get back to this,” Pyra laughed. “Boreas will break the door down if he doesn’t get to eat.”

* * *

A little while later, the two of them had served dinner to everyone. Poppi stood in the corner, a cord plugged into her forearm, quietly restoring her ether energy. Everyone sat scattered around the living room or at Tora’s table around the fire. Rex sank onto a cushion next to Pyra, feeling immensely proud that he hadn’t managed to completely ruin her cooking. He nudged her with an elbow and she gave him a gentle smile back. “Maybe we should bring Nia into the kitchen next time, eh? She could help out if we mess up again.”

“Hmph, that was on you.”

“Are you sure you’re not Mythra right now?” 

Pyra gave him a glare uncannily similar to her sister's resting face.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope I'm not doing too much Xeno stuff. Sorry for being dead this last week or so, had a lot of school things going on. Anyway, enjoy the fic. I'm thinking about maybe doing something focused on Zeke and Pandoria next.


End file.
